Sofrimento e ressentimento: Dimensões da descentralização de políticas públicas de segurança no município de niterói

Abstract

The objective of this article is to present a discussion about the impact of the process of decentralization of a public policy for security in Niterói, considering, on one side, the context of implementing the Municipal Guards in Brazil, from its formalization in the sphere of norms in the Constitution of 1988, and on another, the re-registration of street vendors in the city - the so-called camelôs. The ethnographic material on which this analysis is based refers both to the reformulation of the Municipal Guard in Niterói and the relisting of the camelôs in the context of the decentralization of security policies. It was observed that, in the implementation of universal and equitable mechanisms of institutional management of conflicts in public space, the difficulties encountered by the local government concerned the persistence of a habitus in the practice of municipal guards, based on repression. Similarly, the policy of re-registration did not mean guaranteed access to a social right, but a process of stigmatization of a particular social group, while it allowed a better control of the same by the State. As a result, the camelôs expressed their dissatisfaction using discourses that valorized suffering and disregard as strategies for building a public image that could allow a space in the municipal security policy.